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Frustrated to Lu Train

Would it be traumatic to lu train a child of 2 years of age?

Due to severe nappy rashes, my mum advised me to lu train my eldest daughter at the age of two. After six months of training, my daughter manages to urinate in her lu, but quite scared to defecate on the other hand. She is now 3 years and 6 months old but my problem is still the same. It's somehow frustrating to train her over and over again.

Two years old is quite young to start toilet training but some toddlers do successfully start at this age. Some parents use Elimination Communication but this involves using gentle, relaxed methods to watch for when the baby is giving 'toilet cues' at a young age.

I would say that, more than the age of the child, it depends on the technique that you use to toilet train them. I do not think it ever has to be traumatic if you follow a gentle approach.

Do you have any idea why you child is scared to poo in the toilet? Has she had previous bad experiences with this? Or is it pooing in general that she finds scary? If her poos are too hard then she is likely to need some diet changes (e.g. increased water and fruit) to help with this. Perhaps she is struggling to relax when she poos and so needs to re-learn that it can be an easy and natural process.

Try not to get frustrated with her and give her plenty of time and patience.

I started potty training my daughter by giving rewards like small toys or candies. I even bought 3 colorful potties for my child. Two of them were personally chosen by my child at the store. At first, my child was excited with the rewards. She would poo in small bits just to be able to get rewards. My daughter can't relax herself when pooping on her potty. She is more comfortable pooping on her nappies instead. I don't push her a lot. However, there was this instance that I had a new nanny who spanked her butt when she had a poo accident. I believe it was traumatic for her. I got rid of the new nanny but the results of such horrible incident remain. I hope in due time my daughter will learn and love to use her potty again.

It sounds like you went about toilet training in the right way - involving your daughter in the decision and using rewards to encourage her.

However, I would certainly say that the effect of the new nanny disciplining your daughter like this for an accident would have had a very negative impact on her. How upsetting this must have been. I would be very sad and annoyed if this happened to my child by someone I entrusted to care from them. I think an especially gentle approach will be needed to undo the upset caused by this incident.

I'm really hoping she'll forget such traumatic incident with the nanny. I'm still trying to look for other new ways to potty train her. Again, thanks for the website link about Elimination Communication.

I had two of my 3 children do potty training starting at the age of around 3 too. It was truly frustrating at first but it does give, not only your child rewards, but you as well.

One advice that I can give is that when you train your baby to poo, you may want to do it in the early morning, some few hours after they wake up or before they take their bath. Even with adults, these are the best times to train the bottom to poo at the right time (if I am not mistaken) of the day. In this way, whether it is a success or not, your child may train their own bottoms to poo at the right time and place.

Thank you so much for sharing Dr Sears' link. I felt relieved after reading the same experiences from other mothers. I even realised that I was lucky to have a housekeeper to do the laundry for me. I would definitely try the suggested tips on that site.

Thanks for the suggestion. I used to train my child sitting on her potty upon waking up in the morning. After she learned to pee on her own, I stopped doing such routine. Maybe you're suggestion would remind my child on how we used to spend time waiting for her first pee or poo in the morning.

How is your 3 year old doing now with the potty training? Is she fully trained during the day? Is she partially trained or not at all trained at night?

I had 2 children who wore pull-ups at night until they were 8. It seems like a long time. Some nights she would be dry but most nights she woke up wet, so I just figured it was easier to keep her in pull-ups at night. I also had a child who completely trained at age 3, day and night. The others were somewhere in between. Each child was different, but I never had a child over the age of 8 that was not fully trained.

My youngest child, who will not be two until February kind of took the lead about a month ago while we were actively training our three-year-old and now they are both fully potty trained. We use a small, child-friendly training potty, they each have their own. I don't think two is too young at all, as long as the little one is showing signs and you are using a gentle approach. I never dreamed my youngest would be using the potty this soon but I think it was a combination of watching her older brother learn and the fact that she always wore cloth diapers, which I think may help to increase awareness. Either way, I am very happy with my success and wish you the best of luck as well!